What’s your take on everything?

July 17, 2015

“The old believe everything; the middle-aged suspect everything; the young know everything.”  (Oscar Wilde) – as seen on the Jack’s Winning Words blog.  Jack went on to write – A recent study shows that people, 69 and older, tend to believe too-good-to-be-true promises.  Internet feedback shows that middle-agers are conspiracy-prone.  If it’s not “the gov’t,” it’s a religious plot, or Wall St.  And, of course, it’s nothing new that the young know everything.  Haven’t you ever been young?  But…beware of stereotypes!

I guess I must still be thinking somewhat like a middle-aged person. I don’t believe in the various conspiracy theories and BS that many of the arch-conservative political groups seem to be trying to spread all of the time; however, I’ve yet to send money to a stranded friend who is apparently stuck in London after someone stole his wallet and passport. I usually tell them that all of my money is currently tied up trying to help the ex-Finance Minister of Botswana get his family fortune out of the country.  I suspect that I will take a healthy amount of skepticism with me forever.

know it allI do meet adults from time to time who apparently never grew out of their belief that they already know everything. It’s no longer cute or forgivable in someone who surely should have gained at least enough intelligence to realize how little they actually know.  In my real estate business I do run into older people who have become quite trusting of everyone and everything and I try to make sure that I do nothing to betray that trust.

Where are you on the “everything” spectrum?  Do you know everything, suspect everything or accept everything? Probably most of us have elements of all three in our personalities, maybe with the scale tipping further towards believing everything as we grow older; although I know some pretty paranoid older people who don’t seem to be able to move beyond the conspiracy-theory mindset. They don’t trust anybody.

I think another thing happens as you age and that has to do with your religious beliefs. Children start out as believers because they want to please others. They say they believe, without understanding really what that know it all 2means, because adults in their lives may tell them that they should believe. Somewhere in their youth many tend to wander from those beliefs because they become distracted by other things in life that they think are more important. Their lack of faith may take on what they think is a weighty conscious skepticism about everything they’ve been told to believe up to that point – it’s an intellectual rebellion as much anything rooted in their rebellion against all things that they’ve been told they must do or how they’ve been expected to conduct themselves. Many beers are consumed in colleges as that debate rages into the night.

Later, as true adults, a good number return to religion because they realize that something has been missing from their lives. An unfortunately large number, however, continue their life journey without the touchstone of faith to act as a moral compass and comfort through life’s trials. It takes a crisis or some life changing event to bring most of those people back into some recognition that faith is a key missing element in their lives. Some never make it back and that is sad.

shield of faithFor the older people there almost always comes a moment when they finally ask themselves, “What’s next?”  Without faith there is no satisfactory answer to that question. So, maybe it’s not so much as Wilde put it, “The old believe everything”; so much as it is that they finally believe something (again). As I age, I don’t sit around contemplating the end; however, I find increasing comfort in the belief that death here on earth is not the end. That’s actually frees me to go on about a productive life and to enjoy each day.

So, what do you believe? You certainly don’t know everything, and you don’t need to be suspicious about everything and you really shouldn’t believe everything; however, at your very core,  you do need to believe in something. For me that something is my faith. What have you got?

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Posted by Norm Werner

Believe…?

January 11, 2015

One of the most overused words during the last holiday season (and actually all the time) was the word Believe. Put that word next to a sports team logo and you have an ad for the fans. Put it next to a picture of Santa Claus and it becomes a Christmas message and put it under a picture of two people and a baby standing in a stable with a star shining above and it becomes a religious message.  It is abelieve favorite of motivational speakers everywhere. Believe in the product. Believe in the program. Believe in the company. Believe in yourself! There’s even a popular T-shirt with “I believe” on it.

What does it mean to believe? According to the dictionary to believe is to have confidence in the truth, the existence, or the reliability of something, although without absolute proof that one is right in doing so.  Certainly, most those who run around all year with “Believe” T-shirts (or sweatshirts if one lives in the North) on for their favorite sports team believed in their team. Some still do and think that they got robbed of the chance to go all the way to whatever final playoff game or context exists for that sport. We all go through a time in our young lives where we believe in Santa Claus, some more than others out of hope in their desperate situations as much as belief.

thinking womanWe all, at some time or another, also need to take stock in what we believe in the religious sense. I have a hard time fathoming how those who claim to have no religious beliefs at all reconcile the inevitable end of life. They may state that what they believe is that when you die, that’s it, that’s the end, there is nothing else. Wow, talk about a dead-end belief (pun intended). Having no religious beliefs at all also leaves big questions unanswered – the How and Why type questions about life.

The concept of religions almost seems to be an innate human characteristic, something that is inevitable as human beings everywhere and anywhere cope with trying to understand the world that they live in. While I don’t have time here to go into a deep dive on that thought, I will someday. What I would present temporarily, as proof of that statement, is the spontaneous and autonomous rise of world religious symbolsreligious beliefs and the creation of rather complex religious ideologies that grew up around the world within totally isolated groups of humans.

When the first explorers arrived to the New World in North America they found a native population that had developed a complete religion around the concept of The Great Spirit – maker and keeper of all things in nature. To the south the Spanish and Portuguese explorers found very complex and ritual-oriented religious worship of the Sun god (note, not the Son) in place. Obviously those religions grew out of a common need of man to explain things beyond his comprehension and control. Other religions in other parts of the world sprang out of the same need, some creating elaborate hierarchies of deities, but all aimed at the same end – to provide an explanation for what man could not understand or explain himself. Most of these praying in different religionsreligions also had provisions for the concept of a soul or spirit within man and some form of existence after earthly death or even rebirth. People involved with all of these “religions” believed; because to not believe leaves one with nothing – no explanations, no sense of underlying order and no afterlife.

What things do you hold to be true, even though you cannot prove that to be so? It’s OK to have beliefs and even to share them with others.  Joining other people with similar beliefs in organized worship is both a reinforcement of your beliefs and comforting.  We all need to believe in something, because the alternative is unfathomable and frightening.  Every week in my church service we recite a creed that states our beliefs. It starts, “I believe in…”

So, what do you believe in?

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Posted by Norm Werner

Do you see what I see?

December 25, 2014

“It’s not what you look at that matters, it’s what you see.”  – Henry David Thoreau.

This time of year we hear a Christmas song with the question – Do you see what I see? I think Thoreau really had something in mind like that when he penned the line in today’s quote. One often hears in stories about crimes that police have eye witness reports that are all different, in other words the various people did not all see what the others saw. How can that be? Do you see what I see?

Without getting deeply existential about it, what we “see” when wedigital thinkinglook at something can be completely different than what another witness to the event saw, because we are both seeing it from different, personal perspectives. Perspective, in this case, is not about camera angles and instant replays; it’s really about how our life experiences and knowledge base filters and colors what we observe into what we “see.” That’s what the question is valid – Do you see what I see?

One witness at a shooting sees a man trying to surrender, while another sees the man making an aggressive move. Which is right? Maybe neither, since both are filtered and colored by the background of the observer. There are such great gulfs in cultures that a gesture made in greeting or friendship in one culture may be crowdtaken as threatening or disrespectful in another culture. Cross-cultural differences often result in awkward moments when decisions about whether to shake hands or give a hug are being pondered when someone new enters the room. I’ve experienced that a lot in family gatherings with our in-laws. They are from an eastern European background, where greetings with a hug and kiss are the norm. More than once I’ve been awkwardly expending a hand while they were approaching with open arms for a hug. We eventually get it right and I am more careful to watch now for their signals as to whether this will be a shake for a hug greeting. Do you see what I see?

But culture isn’t the only influence on what we “see” in our day-today living. The experiences that we’ve accumulated during our lives and the knowledge (hopefully wisdom) that we’ve built up also act as filters for what we see, hear and experience as we go along. There are saying about the loss of innocence as we grow up and that loss is because innocence (or ignorance, if you prefer) is supplanted by experience and knowledge. Some of that knowledge is based upon direct experiences, but quite a bit is based upon the experiences or knowledge of others that is passed down to us. Wetededy bears don’t have to experience a mauling by a real, live bear to “know” that the bear in the zoo is not the same cute and cuddly playmate that our first Teddy Bear was. We begin to “see” bears differently and we attach a certain caution about the potential danger when we observe them, especially if we ever saw them in the wild. Do you see what I see?

Unfortunately, not all of the “wisdom” that is passed between generations is good or even valid. We are not born with prejudices against people of certain color or ethnicity. Prejudice is something that we “learn” from the talk and actions of others (usually our parents and friends) and it impacts how we “see” the people that we have been conditioned to see differently. Are there caution flags that pop up in your mind when you see a person of a certain color or race? How did those get there? Do they always prove to be true? If not, of what use are they for you and how do you get rid of them? Do you see what I see?

It can take quite a bit of effort and time to retrain you mind so that it does not immediately attach false warnings or prejudices to the things that you observe – to see them differently.  A cute little article in the paper on Christmas Day focused upon a question from a child about the color of Santa Claus and an explanation santaused years ago on a TV show to explain how Santa can look like whatever he needs to look like to allow the observer to see what they what to see. Calling upon the magic of the season, the explanation given was that, as he came down the chimney into each house, Santa changed in ethnicity and color as was appropriate for that house. All the children just “saw” Santa. In this explanation, Santa was the perfect answer to the question – Do you see what I see?

But the real story of Christmas is about something that is impossible to observe with our eyes, but which can be seen if we look at it the right way. After all, how does one “see” pure love?  We may be able to observe the birth of a child, but not “see” the pure love of a God willing to sacrifice His only Son for the baby-boy-playing-with-his-footforgiveness of our sins. So, look past all of the decorations and the presents. Look beyond the trappings of the seasons and the staged events both secular and church-oriented. Peer deeply into the eyes of a newborn baby and “see” the pure and unadulterated love that is there. Do you see what I see?

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Posted by Norm Werner

What do you believe in?

September 16, 2014

“The older I get, the more deeply I believe, but the fewer beliefs I have.”  (John Shelby Spong)

For me, this little quote that I spotted on the Jack’s Winning Words blog was meaningful. I suspect that there is a “funnel effect” to life that comes onto play in this little saying. Earlier in life, like I think that many do; I had all sorts of beliefs and goals that I thought were important.  As I get deeper into the final quarter of life, I find that many of those things have dropped away.  They have become unimportant to me and I am becoming more focused upon the only beliefs that make any sense in an end game scenario.

I certainly don’t want to sound maudlin or depressed or anything like that; it’s just that, as one gets older, one begins smiling manto weed out many of the things in their life that really have little real importance or consequence and to concentrate on finding out what is important and meaningful and fulfilling. It is relatively easy, from the perspective of age and a bit more wisdom, to see the lack of importance of material things when compared to meaningful and lasting relationships. It becomes more obvious that personal achievements pale next to things like personal satisfaction found in service to others. There is a heighted sense of self, not as the center; but, rather as the tool through which greater good might be achieved. The “I” becomes less important than the “us” in life and much of that turns on what you can do to help others or to love others more and receive their love in return.

I suspect that if you asked Bill Gates what motivates him now and what makes him feel good at the end of a day, it will have nothing to do with the things that he became famous for achieving. It’s no longer about getting more; it now about doing the most good with what he has to give away. Many famous and wealthy people get to that stage in their lives. They just happen to have the wherewithal to do huge things; whereas most of us have to be satisfied with doing the smaller things that we can. The good news is that all of us can feel great about what we did do at the end of the day.

So what does all of that have to do with the opening quote? We all eventually get to a stage in life where we spend some time considering our own mortality. Once you begin to consider that, it is easy to move on to thinking about what is really important in life and what you hope that people will remember about you or what lasting mark you will have made on this planet because you were here.  No one is likely to remember how big your house was or what fancy cars you owned or how much money you accumulated (unless, of course, you do some great things for others with that money).  What you did in life is much more important than what you had in life.

So, based upon those thoughts, it is easy to see why many “beliefs” that may have served as pillars in your life can dropthinking hard away.  How long will you “believe” that working 70-80 hours a week to provide for your family is really the right thing to do? In fact, how long will you “believe” that you’re really doing that for your family and not just to feed your own ego? How long will you believe that stepping on or stepping over others to get ahead is the right thing to do?

Am I saying that you need to sell everything, give the proceeds to the poor and go join a monastery? No! I’m espousing taking some time to think about what is really important in life. Once you get beyond what is needed for basic survival and some level of comfort and security for your family, what then?  Is it more important to earn another few dollars or to spend time with your son or daughter at their game or play or dance? Is chasing that next promotion worth more to you than taking time to hug your wife and planning a little weekend getaway?  Is putting in extra time on a presentation for work more important than visiting a shut-in relative or friend? For that matter; is making a new friend by visiting someone wo is shut-in that you don’t even know more rewarding than glad-handing a bunch of people that you don’t know at a work-related meeting?

It may be hard to see that now, but those are all choices that you will face in the middle years of life, when your beliefs piles on deskare many and focused more on personal success than on your relationships and service to others. Eventually, many of those “beliefs” will drop away. You will realize that some were never worth believing in to begin with, and some were beliefs in things that just were not true or lasting or worthwhile.

It is unfortunate that, for many, it will take most of their life for them to come to these realizations. For a few, these revelations come early in life and they are usually thought of as weird or unusual, because they aren’t dancing to the same tune as everyone else. They go into careers of service or ministry or support for others or they live simple lives that most people can’t relate to. Many times they are thought to be somehow odd; and, the really disquieting thing about them is how oddly happy they seem to be. It could almost make one wonder, who could be in the wrong in that picture?

It’s a good thing to pause and take stock every now and then about the things that you “believe in”. It’s good to ask why
you believe that way and whether those things are worthy of your continued belief. It is also a good thing to ask to whatwomen dreaming purpose you hold those beliefs; what rewards do they promise to return to you and has that promise proven to be true. Then ask what those rewards were really worth to you in your life. Did they enhance your relationships? Did they relieve pain or suffering for someone? Did they make life easier and more enriched for someone? Did they make a difference in someone’s life? Did someone love you more because you gave them things when all they wanted was more of you, your time, or your love?

Inevitably you will face that moment of truth in this process where you have discarded all other beliefs but one – your belief in what happens next? If you have that one belief left to lean on – that there is a “next” after this life – you will have reduced your life to the most basic belief of our existence.  Maybe you can build on that belief to more fully enjoy the here and now. If you get to that point and there is no “next” that you can believe in, nothing beyond the abyss that you can see in front of you, perhaps it is time to get down on your knees and ask for help. The good news is that it’s never too late to believe.

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Posted by Norm Werner

Neither look ahead or behind…

December 30, 2013

Jack FreedThis past Sunday we had a guest preacher at our church. Actually he was a very familiar face, since he is the retired, founding pastor of the congregation – Jack Freed. You may recognize the name because he is also the author of the daily blog that I often quote here – Jack’s Winning Words.

One of the themes that Jack used in his sermon was not to spend lots of time looking back at things that have already happened or trying to look ahead to predict what might happen. Instead, he suggested that you look up (well, he is a preacher, after all) to God for guidance.

Good advice, but I wanted to expand a minute on the theme of not looking back or forward. It’s that time of year when we are inundated with “The Best of 2013” articles in print and on TV shows. People seem to like having lists made by others of the top 10 things in almost any category, especially within a time frame that we can relate to. There are also lots of articles by supposedly learned pundits with prognostications about the coming year.

The writers of articles about the past have a much better track record of getting things right that the predictors of the future; although, neither group is 100% accurate. Where the stories about past events stray off into the bushes is the point at which the authors abandon the reporting of known facts and start speculating upon causes, whether they be the motivation for something bad done by someone or which factors (usually out of many) can be identified as the tipping point for an event.  I always get a kick out of the Wall Street “experts” pontificating about the causes of a market rise or fall, which, by the way, they never saw coming.

fortune tellerThat brings us to the prognosticators, the forecasters, the swamis of the future. If there is one thing that everyone should have learned by now it is that the future is unpredictable and unknowable. Yet, supposedly learned men and women continue to waste their time and ours by trying to predict what will happen in the coming year. As, we, as consumers of the media, eat this drivel up. Most of the supposed seers of the future base much of their forecast upon two things – an understanding of what has happened in the past and a belief in the continuation of trends. They look at the data about whatever it is they are forecasting and projects the trends that they see out into the future – the coming year. It’s a method that appeals to our belief in the “scientific method.”

Yet, when I think back of the past few decades there doesn’t seem to be a year that I can recall where there was not some major, disruptive event; an event that interrupted the trend lines and made them irrelevant. Whether it is a terrorist attack, a major oil leak, major weather events or something else, there are always unanticipated events that provide an inflection point for radical change in the trend lines. It is the very nature of the future that it cannot really be anticipated or forecast with any degree of certainty. So take all of those articles and shows about the coming year for what they are – a different form of reality show entertainment and nothing else.

So, if you can’t predict the future, what can you do about it? There are groups, loosely categorized as “survivalist”, who spend much of their time preparing for Armageddon, the collapse of society’s as we know them.  I think that’s a bit extreme, but their extreme view of the future is as likely as the views expressed by many other so-called futurists. Perhaps the answer is to live in the moment. Certainly, you can spend some time studying the past, to see if you can learn anything from what happened; however, it is foolhardy to spend much time pondering the future, beyond things that you have some control over, such as saving for retirement.

If you look at history and spend any time contemplating your future, you will eventually realize that no one haschoices ever lived forever and that you are unlikely to become the first to break that record. That might eventually lead you to the conclusion that Jack was preaching about, that you should look up – towards God; if there is a God. That is a question that each of us deals with eventually.

So, I’ll not spend much time looking back at 2013 (or further back) and will only as an amusement read or watch the predictions for the future. As I get older I do spend a bit more time looking up and find comfort in my belief that there is a God and a future beyond death. Try as I might, I cannot wrap my head around what it must be like for those who conclude that there is no God. To have nothing at the end of life must be a desolate feeling.

I guess that does lead to one prediction for the future that I feel relatively safe in making – we will all come to the end of life on this earth, whether in 2014 or date beyond. What lies beyond that date is pretty much up to you.

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Posted by Norm Werner

Don’t confuse values with dogma…

December 19, 2012

“Lasting change is a series of compromises, and compromise is all right, as long as your values don’t change.” (Jane Goodall)

As we continue our journey towards the so-called Fiscal Cliff this saying, which of course I found on the Jack’s Winning Words blog seemed really apropos. When I thought about it and reflected on the sound bites that we get to see every night on the news – some from President Obama and some from Speaker Boehner – it occurred to me that what we are seeing much of the time is not a display of true underlying values, but rather a stubborn defense of dogma from both sides.

Websters defines dogma thusly –

a: something held as an established opinion; especially: a definite authoritative  tenet

b: a code of such tenets <pedagogical dogma>

c: a point of view or tenet put forth as authoritative without adequate grounds

So then what is a tenet? It is defined thusly –
a principle, belief, or doctrine generally held to be true; especially: one held in common by members of an organization, movement, or profession
So, basically it can be boiled down to this – it’s true because we say it’s true.
There is certainly dogma at work in Washington on the Fiscal Cliff debate right now, on both sides of the aisle in Congress and between Congress and the President. What might have started out as basic underlying or core values of both parties has in recent years hardened into dogma that neither party can now escape in the spirit of compromise; and compromise is certainly what is needed right now.
Every decision that must be made in Washington is now viewed as a political decision, with an eye towards the next election. Politicians, especially those in the House, with only a two year term, are essentially always campaigning, always fund raising and always paying off big supporters with votes in support of their desires.  Senators seem to have a bit more leeway, but they too are always mindful of the TV cameras and “how this will play back home.”
Very few of our legislators seem to be considering the good of the country or their constituents, just what their “backers” want. The backers are so tight with the legistators that it’s been widely reported in the news that they supply the wording  that the so-called law-makers then introduce into law. That leaves them more time to go on camera to defend the dogma of their party and play to the audiences back home.
So now the dogma on one side says that people are rich when they make more than $400,000 a year and the other side says, no; they’re not rich until they make $1,000,000 a year. All of this plays out on TV everynight to an America in which many people consider those to be well off who don’t need Food Stamps to survive. How did our core values as a nation get so perverted into dogma? I’d call the beliefs driving the debate in Washington right now drivel rather than even dogma.

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